Why the flag?

I'm a moderately left-wing political cynic. We've never had a flag on our house, and even after 9/11, I didn't go from store to store looking for one. But when some store chain placed a full-page flag in the New York Times, I cut it out and hung it in the window. My friends on the left have asked me why I would do such a thing. As one guy put it, he'd prefer a symbol that didn't make him feel like a member of the John Birch society.

So why did I hang the flag? Another friend called it protective coloration, but that's not quite right, because my impulse is honest, however murky. It's more like this: You either hang the flag or you don't. A range of beliefs is represented by either choice.

Not hanging the flag embraces conscientious objection, disagreement with the more Neanderthal policies of this administration, doubt of this administration's very legitimacy, pacifism, and anti-globalization -- all ideas for which I have varying but positive levels of sympathy. But flaglessness can also represent a complete disgust with America; it can represent a lack of sympathy with those who died for the sin of being American; it can represent simple apathy.

Hanging the flag can show general conservatism, personal support of George Bush, militarism, a belief in the divine right of the United States to dominate the world. Worse, the flag is often used by causes that stifle free speech, promote homogeneity and isolationism, even blur the line between being American and being a white, heterosexual Christian. Needless to say, I oppose all these ideas. But perhaps naïvely, I continue to believe in America. I think that the political right is willfully ignorant of just what that means. Go to the primary documents, the Bill of Rights, the philosophical tradition of Locke and others. Remember that the country was founded in the ideal of not letting the majority, or a vocal minority, dictate the conscience of the individual. Foolishly or not, I believe in the grand experiment of a society that's diverse and tolerant, where the marketplace of ideas is at least as important as the marketplace of dollars, where, at least in theory, what you do is more important than where you were born. America is composed of and led by human beings; by nature, humans are often petty, small-minded, fearful, blind. But my dissent from many of our national and cultural decisions occurs within the context of the great debate, not as a disgusted dismissal of the whole. And beyond doubt -- it should go without saying -- I support even the most foolish decisions of a free society against those who would short-circuit debate by violence.

So the ideas shown by hanging a flag include some unpleasant things. But overall, and especially now, I'm less comfortable with the unpleasant aspects of showing no colors at all.

-- Mr. Joel